One Huge Thank-You & Other Little Notes

I was overwhelmed by the comments you all left on the tea/coffee set for the junk party, and I just want to say a big thank you to all of you, and to Kennesha for hosting such a nice event! This has, by far, been the most fun event I have participated in Blogland, and it really made me feel like starting a blog is a great and rewarding experience. Once again, thank you!

I would have loved to reply to every single comment you guys left, but  unfortunately some of the comments get e-mailed to me without an e-mail address. Some of you asked if I was planning on selling the set, and the answer is yes. I am planning on opening my Etsy store very soon, and I’m currently working on acquiring a nice stash of napkins to do custom orders. Of course, I’m not selling that particular one, because it was more of an exercise, but all sets would look similar to what you saw. So, stay tuned and I will make sure to let you know when the shop opens!

On the home front, my Echinacea is in full bloom and it looks so perfect!

Also, I am now the proud owner of a cute little Ageratum, fondly called Blue Puffy in Bulgaria.

In the background you can see the tiny Rosemary plant I started from seed. I have to say it’s developing very well, and I hope it continues to grow that way. In addition, I now have a baby lavender, too, for which I am extremely excited!

I’m also still working on the mystery project and I am hoping I can have some more time tomorrow to take detailed pictures and finally get it completed. In the meantime, here’s what happens when I’m not looking:

Poor little thing was so terrified when we took the picture. On top of it, I now have blue paw-prints on the carpet that I have no clue how to clean up. Fun, fun!

I hope you’ve all had a great weekend, and wishing you a great week!

A Junk Party!

Yes, that’s right! Sweet Kennesha @ Me & My House is hosting a Junk Party!

Hop on over and pay her a visit! She’s got some lovely lovely transformations, and the ladies that have posted have some sweet ‘junk’!

Me? I’m going with my own little piece of junk which you’ve already read about, but since I was about to throw it out I think it qualifies, hah!

 

So, join us for a fun little party!

Mystery Sneak-Peek

Things have been quite busy around here, and while I’m not as far in my ‘to-do’ list as I’d like to be, I’m slowly creeping forward and crossing things off.

I bought some lovely pink cascade petunias the other day, along with some planters, and planted them yesterday. Now they are happily sitting at my bedroom window creating a lovely patch of color on the otherwise boring facade. Some time this weekend I will find the time to do one more planter, but this time it will be the petunias I started from seed.

I can only hope my bedroom window starts looking something similar to this soon! Ha.

We went shopping last night but got to spend only 5 minutes in the store because they were closing, but I managed to pick a couple of things. And so, I give you a sneak-peek of what I am working on now, and I will hopefully have a tutorial posted in a couple of days!

Can you guess what it is?

Stay tuned!

Wish I Had One Of Those…

One bad thing about living in an apartment (among many other bad things) is that there isn’t enough room to go crazy with decoration ideas and set up special rooms for hobbies, crafts, etc. I have seen pictures of craft rooms, in particular, that really draw my attention and make me really wish I had some space to make one of my own – especially with my stash of materials growing!

Oh well, I guess that’s something to aspire for – getting a house where I can have a room to call my own craft room! In the meantime, here’s some eye-candy:

  

 

 

You should really check the last link, there’s some gorgeous craft room photos there!

Here’s hoping!

[Click on images to go to sources]

Finally, the tea/coffee set!

Well, it’s been a few days since I last posted and promised “before” and “after” pictures of the tea/coffee set! The set has been complete for almost a week now, but in my defense I now get home late in the afternoon when the lighting is bad and I didn’t want to post pictures where you couldn’t really tell the difference. That, and I’ve been dropping like dead as soon as I get home…

Here’s the “before” pictures:

 

As you can see this was a pretty boring and bland little milk glass set that we bought 10 years ago. In fact, I was tempted to throw it out a few weeks ago when I was going through the cupboard. Needless to say, I am glad I didn’t! Even though the set didn’t quite turn out like I would have liked it to, it gave me a nice base of experience.

Here’s the “after”:

Overall I think it turned out nice, but I need to work on the edges and a technique of folding the napkins so that they turn out even. However, the most important thing I learned – the motifs brown slightly after being baked in the oven. Believe it or not, I actually didn’t account for that. Here’s what a cup looked like before baking, and after.

It is difficult to see from the pictures, but the “after” product has a slight brownish tint to it. When I took them out of the oven the pieces looks so brown I was terrified, but once they cooled completely off and after three coats of varnish, things looked better.

This, if nothing else, was a lovely little learning experience! In fact, I’m really looking forward to “upgrading” something else that has been forgotten about for the past 10 years – and there’s plenty of that in my house!

Hope you have all had a great week so far!